I hadn't used DOSBox much at all, and yesterday I decided to install DOSBox on my main desktop PC (running Windows 10 64-bit) to try running some old DOS games & apps. I am surprised how easy it is to set up DOSBox, and that it does Sound Blaster emulation and is basically ready to go right after it's installed. I have a directory on my HDD set aside now for the DOSBox C drive, and I copied some games there, which ran without a problem, with sound and mouse support working. I'm really surprised how easy it was to get set up, and I found DOSBox can scale the window size up so that it's not a tiny window on my modern PC monitor.

I also tried running Telemate and Telix, my two favorte communication programs for DOS back in the day. Telemate seems to work fairly well, though I saw some odd behavior with Telix. With certain menus on my BBS, Telix seemed to be sending empty data, causing my BBS to re-draw the menu and sometimes to display the error "Unrecognized command ()", and sometimes the display just got very wonky. Enabling & disabling the status bar seems to make a difference, too - Depending on whether the status bar is showing or not, I had problems on different menus on my BBS. Has anyone set up Telix in DOSBox?

Nightfox

I also tried running Telemate and Telix, my two favorte communication programs for DOS back in the day. Telemate seems to work fairly well, though I saw some odd behavior with Telix. With certain menus on my
BBS, Telix seemed to be sending empty data, causing my BBS to re-draw
the menu and sometimes to display the error "Unrecognized command ()",
and sometimes the display just got very wonky. Enabling & disabling the status bar seems to make a difference, too - Depending on whether the status bar is showing or not, I had problems on different menus on my
BBS. Has anyone set up Telix in DOSBox?

Telix in DOSBox would consistently garble ANSI screens on certain BBS's for
me. I ended up switching to Telemate and it worked a bit better.

Now that I have a WiModem232, I wonder if its modem/tcp/ip emulation is
better than what DOSBox uses and would fix the issues (or make them worse.)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A43 2019/03/03 (Windows/32)
* Origin: Black Flag <ACiD Telnet HQ> blackflagbbs.com (46:1/104)

Re: DOSBox
By: deepthaw to Nightfox on Wed Feb 19 2020 02:59 pm

Telix in DOSBox would consistently garble ANSI screens on certain BBS's for me. I ended up switching to Telemate and it worked a bit better.

Interesting.. That's one thing I'm seeing, and it sounds like there's no good fix for it? I could just use Telemate, I suppose.

Nightfox

status bar is showing or not, I had problems on different menus on my
BBS. Has anyone set up Telix in DOSBox?

I suspect a problem will be that DOSBox doesn't support the TELNET protocol when its converting a comport to a socket, and obviously the DOS terminals themselves won't either. Its just connecting and sending raw data over, not actual telnet data.

I would suspect that file tranfers especially wouldn't work well.

I'm not sure Telix was ever good with ANSI though lol

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/64)
* Origin: Sector 7 (46:1/127)

Re: Re: DOSBox
By: g00r00 to Nightfox on Sat Feb 22 2020 07:16 am

status bar is showing or not, I had problems on different menus on
my BBS. Has anyone set up Telix in DOSBox?

I'm not sure Telix was ever good with ANSI though lol

Telix was very popular though.. I tended to use Telemate a lot more, but I'd be surprised if a BBS-capable comm program would be as popular as Telix if it wasn't good with ANSI.

Nightfox

on 21 Feb 2020, Nightfox said...

Re: Re: DOSBox
By: g00r00 to Nightfox on Sat Feb 22 2020 07:16 am

status bar is showing or not, I had problems on different menus on
my BBS. Has anyone set up Telix in DOSBox?

I'm not sure Telix was ever good with ANSI though lol

Telix was very popular though.. I tended to use Telemate a lot more,
but I'd be surprised if a BBS-capable comm program would be as popular
as Telix if it wasn't good with ANSI.

I've experienced similar issues with Syncterm when logging in to some Mystic boards (i.e. screen size is not correct so shit scrolls). Disabling the
status bar usually does the trick. Good money says whatever board you're calling is expecting you to have a full 80x25 screen when, in fact, your terminal is 80x24 (reserving the last line for the status line). Back in the day you'd always make sure your ANSIs and prompts stopped by the 24th line
for just that reason... something that seems to have been forgotten in
today's world (much like cutting your ANSIs off at the 78th or 79th column
so you can post them in ANSI-friendly subs directly without them getting garbled by attempts at line-wrapping).

TL;DR Disabling your status line will probably take care of the issue on
boards expecting an 80x25 terminal.

Also, just because it reminded me, my progression in terminals was:
Procomm Plus -> Commo -> Qmodem Pro -> Telix -> Telemate.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A44 2020/02/04 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Re: DOSBox
By: Digital Avatar to Nightfox on Fri Feb 21 2020 09:00 pm

I've experienced similar issues with Syncterm when logging in to some Mystic boards (i.e. screen size is not correct so shit scrolls). Disabling the status bar usually does the trick. Good money says whatever board you're calling is expecting you to have a full 80x25 screen when, in fact, your terminal is 80x24 (reserving the last line for the status line). Back in the day you'd always make sure your ANSIs and prompts stopped by the 24th line for just that reason... something that seems to have been forgotten in today's world (much like cutting your ANSIs off at the 78th or 79th column so you can post them in ANSI-friendly subs directly without them getting garbled by attempts at line-wrapping).

TL;DR Disabling your status line will probably take care of the issue on boards expecting an 80x25 terminal.

I was trying Telix in DOSBox with my own BBS. Disabling the status line didn't help. When I tried disabling the status line in Telix, but it was still acting screwy (i.e., sending blank data to the BBS) and sometimes garbling ANSI.

I run Synchronet on my BBS, which should be able to detect the terminal size of the client.

Also, just because it reminded me, my progression in terminals was: Procomm Plus -> Commo -> Qmodem Pro -> Telix -> Telemate.

I also started with Procomm Plus. I tried a few others, including Qmodem Pro, Telix, Telemate, and I think a couple others, and Telemate ended up being my favorite one.

Nightfox

on 21 Feb 2020, Nightfox said...

I was trying Telix in DOSBox with my own BBS. Disabling the status line didn't help. When I tried disabling the status line in Telix, but it
was still acting screwy (i.e., sending blank data to the BBS) and sometimes garbling ANSI.

Can you be more specific?
* "Acting screwy (i.e., sending blank data to the BBS)" -- so when you're
trying to type something it would just return blanks on the other side?
* "Garbling ANSI" -- garbling how? Bad line wrapping? Dropping characters?

I also started with Procomm Plus. I tried a few others, including
Qmodem Pro, Telix, Telemate, and I think a couple others, and Telemate ended up being my favorite one.

If I recall correctly I tried Qmodem Pro because I wanted to play with
Bimodem (which I believe it supported as a protocol at that time), but ultimately nobody ended up using it so it was pointless. People seemed to
move on from Telemate to Terminate, although honestly I never saw a real difference between the two. Terminate just looked like a clone of Telemate to me.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A44 2020/02/04 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)

Re: DOSBox
By: Digital Avatar to Nightfox on Sat Feb 22 2020 11:21 am

I was trying Telix in DOSBox with my own BBS. Disabling the status
line didn't help. When I tried disabling the status line in Telix,
but it was still acting screwy (i.e., sending blank data to the BBS)
and sometimes garbling ANSI.

Can you be more specific?
* "Acting screwy (i.e., sending blank data to the BBS)" -- so when you're trying to type something it would just return blanks on the other side?

After I'd get to a menu, I wouldn't even have to type anything, it would start re-loading the menu repeatedly. And sometimes my BBS would output an error that made it look like the client was sending empty input.

* "Garbling ANSI" -- garbling how? Bad line wrapping? Dropping characters?

Any and all of the above. It looked like bad line wrapping, incomplete interpretation of ANSI codes, etc.. I've posted a couple screenshots:
http://www.digitaldistortionbbs.com:81/miscPhotos/TelixDOSBox1.png http://www.digitaldistortionbbs.com:81/miscPhotos/TelixDOSBox2.png

Nightfox

on 22 Feb 2020, Nightfox said...

Can you be more specific?
* "Acting screwy (i.e., sending blank data to the BBS)" -- so when yo trying to type something it would just return blanks on the other sid

After I'd get to a menu, I wouldn't even have to type anything, it would start re-loading the menu repeatedly. And sometimes my BBS would output an error that made it look like the client was sending empty input.

Huh. This would be the point where having dumps of packets sent to the board would be helpful for diagnostic purposes. I'm not sure what could be causing this, but I assume the rest of what you mentioned is related.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (46:1/145)